‘In the Cemetery’ (1896)

A year has now passed since I took my first morning walk in the Cemetery of Montparnasse. I have seen the leaves fall from the elms and lindens, seen everything turn green again, the wisteria and roses come into flower on the grave of Théodore de Banville; I have heard the thrush strike up his seductive song beneath the cypresses, and the pigeons cooing among the graves. Now the lindens are turning yellow again, the roses are withering and the thrush no longer sings, but only emits a short derisive laugh at his springtime amours, which have vanished in order to return again. And the filth of autumn and the slush of winter are approaching, to pass away like everything else. On entering the cemetery, I leave behind the rather commonplace and noisy quarter of Montparnasse. The night's unhealthy dreams still pursue me, but I shake them off at the main gate. The din of the streets dies away, and is replaced by the peace of the dead. As I am always alone here at this early hour, I have grown accustomed to regarding this public place of refuge as my pleasure garden, so that in every occasional visitor I see an intruder, come to disturb us, the dead and I! During this whole year I have not brought a single friend here; no man or woman who would, perhaps, have left some memory behind, to intrude upon my personal impressions.